This was John the Baptist.

The Bible paints a picture of him as an eccentric but rather prominent voice of his time

People were leaving the cities to go out into the wilderness to be baptized by him

Message and a madness – the madness of passion

Evangelical in the raw sense of the word – a teller of the “good news”

Otherwise, who would go to see him? Even then, I’m sure people could filter out at least some of the charlatan preachers. I know that people will tend to cling onto even bad leadership in a vacuum, but John the Baptist had something going that must have seemed like the real deal.

He preached a message of hope, one we still need to hear today, that when we repent, God forgives us. It’s simple but brilliant. The baptism that they were receiving from John ritualized this concept. It linked repentance forever with this sacrament. It let people who were guilt-ridden come to the waters of the Jordan River and come clean. They confess their sins, go into the water, and come out new.

In our rather contentious Presbytery climate these days, my friend and clergy colleague at Erin Presbyterian Church, John Stewart has had a frequent question for candidates for the ministry about just this link between repentance and the baptismal covenant. More often than not we think of baptism associated with babies, and we tend not to think of babies as sinners in need of repentance. John keeps drilling the question home for us because an understanding of the sacraments is part of the requirement for a pastor’s entrance into the Presbytery. When one talks about the sacrament of baptism – repentance must be a part of the conversation. We should hear ringing in our ears of John the Baptist’s insistent, loud, unrelenting message to “REPENT, the kingdom of heaven has come near.” We are on holy ground. The Messiah awaits a spectacular arrival. God is preparing our hearts right now. Come to the waters and come clean. Come clean with God, come out of the city, come from the wilderness, no one cares, but rely on this promise of God. Repent, turn away from your old self, and your sins will be forgiven – RIGHT NOW!

It helps at Presbytery meetings that it is our brother John Stewart who keeps us reminded of this passage of scripture with his own persistence and Scottish accent to boot. He reminds us that this is where the meat of our faith happens and lives are saved, real lives.

But we Presbyterians skirt “loud” – we like quiet, decency, order

If a person is too loud about their faith, we think something is wrong with them

We take repentance and turn it into a self-improvement program

This isn’t a self-improvement program! This is about sin and redemption. In the weeks before Christmas, it’s important for us to think about the need for confession of our sins. It’s a time to acknowledge brokenness, woundedness, and our ever expanding ways that we hurt one another and God. The liturgical color purple reminds us in both Advent and Lent that we are humbled before our King of kings.

John the Baptist was loud, but not just about his message to repent,

He had a message for the curiosity seekers from the already well established and respected religious community.

He called them a “brood of vipers”

It’s one of the great insults of scripture. We tend to gloss over the Bible as a nice book about nice people who listened to God. John the Baptist listened to God, and at the same time he blew away the pompous Pharisees and Sadducees.

Listen to that part of the text again:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

That’s loud, loud enough to make some stuffy people really, really angry!

We cannot come to God thinking we’re so right. We cannot just be the curiosity seekers who view the life-saving business of confession and rebirth as a reason to look down our noses at the poor pathetic sinners. The message for the so-called religious ones is harsh. “You may think you’re in with God,” he tells them, “but you’re just a den of baby snakes. You think you’re connections make you who you are, but think again. God is connected to those who humble themselves for real.” This “ax to the root” metaphor speaks of a real wedge between those whom God accepts and those God doesn’t. John continues the separation analogy when it comes to his practice of baptism. It’s a weeding out process. Water is just the first step. The one who comes after, Jesus, will be able to baptize with the Holy Spirit. Again, some will find favor with God and others will be tossed into the fire.

For whom is this a comforting picture? After decorating our tree, watching Chuck do his Christmas baking, and visiting with friends last night, it’s hard to wrap my mind around the dilemma of eternal salvation or damnation this morning. From our cultural mind-set, this should sound like a change of gears, or maybe even a stripping of the gears. But it’s the message of the mall that gets loud. It’s the message of Christmas advertisements that blares in our ears. This message is soft-spoken and if heard at all, is forgotten by half-time of this afternoon’s football game.

“REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

“REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

“REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Do you hear the message? Does it draw you out of your typical comfortable life to listen to a wild man who has a message of God’s grace? Does it startle the religious stability of your past assumptions to know that God will bring children forth from rocks when those who have inherited the faith let it become such a “ho hum” part of their lives?

I read this week about a tradition in the Eastern Orthodox Church that I found fascinating. One of their beliefs is that those who die without ever having heard the gospel get a meeting with John the Baptist in the afterlife to hear of God’s grace and have the opportunity for their soul to be saved. That’s why the icons of John the Baptist are found frequently near their altars as sort of the gateway to heaven. The image is wonderful. John continues to deliver his message so loudly that the dead can hear!